Some Local Birding in early 2026

 

Birding activity in Santa Barbara peaks in the last four months of the year. Birders are very active in September and October looking for migrants and then the arrival of winter visitors and scouting for the Christmas Bird Counts keeps things going until the end of the year. However, after a brief burst of activity in the first week or so of the year as people look for birds found on the Christmas Counts or get started on year lists, activity dies down. Santa Barbara County lacks large concentrations of wintering waterbirds or gulls, so one can’t really hope that something good was missed earlier.

I spent most of my time  in January and February searching along the Gaviota Coast looking for loons (divers in UK parlance) and grebes and, to a lesser extent, seaducks. I am always hoping for an Arctic or Yellow-billed Loon (Black-throated or White-billed Diver) and on one of my visits I did observe a seemingly-Pacific-like loon with a white thigh patch and an apparent bump on the forehead, features suggestive of an Arctic. However, the bird was rather distant and dived after about 20 seconds of viewing, never to be seen again. Multiple follow-up visits failed to relocate it. Having seen all the common loon species occasionally show white thigh patches, I just had to let the sighting go.

This section of the coast does have a lot of loons and on good days it is possible to see upwards of 50 Common Loons and smaller numbers of Red-throated and Pacifics. Seaducks have been disappointing during the dozen years I have been checking this section, with regular Surf Scoter and Red-breasted Merganser but nothing else. Grebes have been a bit more interesting with some clear status changes occurring. When I started, Western Grebes (with a few Clark’s scattered among them) were present in low thousands and Horned (Slavonian) Grebes were invariably seen with counts of 15-25 regular along the 20 miles of coast and an exceptional count of 52 on one occasion. Eared (Black-necked) Grebe was usually only seen on migration and Red-necked Grebe was not annual with only occasional single birds seen.

Subsequently Western Grebe numbers have declined to where I usually don’t even see a thousand in a day. Horned Grebe numbers have plummeted to the point where I usually do not see this species. Despite a lot of effort, I have had only three or four sightings this winter. My experience jives, unfortunately, with other data that indicates the North American population is in sharp decline. I have seen wild fluctuations in the numbers of Western Grebes in the past along the south coast of the county so I am hopeful that numbers of that species will rebound.

In contrast, Eared Grebes are now regular winterers in small numbers (up to 30 or so) and in the last five years Red-necked Grebes have increased, although most birds are seen some way offshore from one specific spot. After a couple of years during which I had begun to see two or three birds in a day, in the winter of 2023/24, I had one day where I found ten, split roughly between Gaviota and El Capitan. The next winter, I was watching off Gaviota and eventually had a flock of 13! This winter, I managed 13 in a single scan off Gaviota followed by two separate singles further east for a single day high of 15 birds. The increase locally has been mirrored further north in Monterey Bay, so it appears that the population along the west coast is increasing. Interestingly, the smaller grebes and Red-breasted Merganser are absent off the north coast of the county, presumably because the large swells there make inshore foraging more difficult.

In addition to birding along the Gaviota Coast, I have visited the Santa Ynez River estuary a few times. The heavy rains not only blew the river mouth open but scoured out the main riverbed, resulting in all the diving ducks leaving as there was presumably nothing to eat. The Pintail all left as well, which was a bit more surprising. An isolated saltmarsh pond has been good for birds including a couple of wintering White-faced Ibis. There have been several hundred gulls around most visits, but these have overwhelmingly been California Gulls. There have been two to seven each of Glaucous-winged and American Herring Gulls each visit, but no Thayer’s Iceland Gulls and nothing rarer, despite there being Laughing Gulls to the south and north!

My final birding in the county prior to leaving for the UK for a few weeks was with Wes and Brad. We headed up to Santa Maria. This was mostly to look for gulls, but that turned out to be a massive bust. Fortunately, we had a few other decent birds. The first stop turned up a Snow Goose. We then headed over to a flooded pasture area to look for a previously reported male Eurasian Wigeon. This effort was successful and we also saw the flock of six Snow Geese there. Another stop produced 24 White-faced Ibis and a Bonaparte’s Gull before we finished off at the Santa Maria River estuary. This had blown out again but despite perfect loafing and bathing habitat for gulls, less than a hundred were present. Shorebirds were a bit better. There were 660 Sanderling present, which Brad could not resist “rounding up” to 666 in the e-bird list – and had that old Iron Maiden song going around in my head for an hour! The better birds were an Avocet and a Pacific Golden-Plover. The latter species once wintered in the Santa Maria Valley with a regular flock of as many as 40 birds, but this is the only report this winter. The conversion of the wintering fields from pasture to row crops put pay to these, along with wintering Mountain Plovers.